Pen hover

Overview

All drawing tablets detect the position of the pen - even if the pen is not touching the tablet.

If you think about it, this is how the tablet MUST work, because the EMR sensor (aka the digitizer) is below the surface (plastic or glass) that the pen touches. So, obviously the pen is always detected at a distance.

This explains why we are able to place a sheet of paper or a plastic cover over the tablet, and the pen will still be detected correctly.

Benefits of hover

• You can reposition the pointer without drawing or clicking.

• You can see where your drawing stroke is going to be before you start the stroke

• For some art styles it is very important: https://youtu.be/ZpcKfipVy24

Some people don't like hover

This is rare, but a small number people don't like seeing the pointer move as they move the pen over the surface of the tablet.

Hover height

The maximum distance the tablet can detect the pen is about 10mm for a modern EMR tablet.

What influences the hover height

Even though the typical hover height is 10mm, The EMR sensor itself can detect the pen at a much greater distance. For example, even around 20mm. But the greater the distance, the less accurate the the pen can determine the position of the pen. So for this reason tablet drivers enforce a lower max hover height.

Controlling the maximum hover height

Drivers from tablet manufacturers offer no user control over the maximum hover height. The height locked into the code of the driver. However, OpenTabletDriver does have plugins that let you control the hover height.

Turning off hover

With a drawing tablet Hover is an intrinsic part of how the tablet works. There is no way to disable hover. Though in some apps it might be possible for you to hide the pointer when you use the pen which might achieve a similar effect.